


habits

by Loreley



Category: No. 6 - Asano Atsuko
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Canon, holiday fluff, shared traumas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-11 00:49:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10451283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loreley/pseuds/Loreley
Summary: When Nezumi awakens in the morning, he plots his escape.(They are not without their matched scars, their habits born of a time before they were them-- so Nezumi cannot feel guilty.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> My gift to englandsmagiceyebrows for the 2016 No 6 Secret Santa! I realized that I had it sitting on my hard drive for some time, and that I should post it here as well for ease of readability...
> 
> I cannot possibly express how much No 6 means to me as a series, so someday I'll write something worthy of that love. For now, here is a small, small story about one of the series' many beautiful subtleties.

When Nezumi awakens in the morning, he plots his escape.

There are two windows in the bedroom, one parallel to the headboard and another just skirting the periphery of Nezumi’s view from the vantage point of his pillow. There is a lack of evident draft in the room, meaning the windows are closed, but the crisp white light flooding the room suggests that the curtains are pulled back, at least. Nezumi is not dressed to face the cold he knows awaits him outside, but the distance to the next warm building is manageable, and he is confident he could charm his way inside without much trouble. (It’s simple, really, _people_ are simple, and by the time he coaxes a smile he has already won.)

That is a habit of Nezumi’s—sizing people up. Determining their use. Weighing their threats.

The covers are pulled up to his chin, but the thickest layer is only a thin quilt, so Nezumi could cast them aside with losing only fractions of a second. If he turns his head, there is a window directly in his line of sight. In three steps, he could be there, and in a few more, he would be gone. It would be nothing. _Simple_.

There is a dead weight on Nezumi’s left arm and he considers the possibility that he may have broken it; he gives it an experimental roll and is gratified to find that motion is not painful. He wiggles his fingers and they are sluggish, but responsive. With an automaticity earned of many years, he methodically works his way down his body, testing for awareness, for injury, for loss. He finds nothing and notes that he is in fact pleasantly warm. He shifts his arm to raise it, to check his shoulder, and feels a grip of _fingers_ resist.

Nezumi tenses and his stomach twists into a knot and every sensation is a flash of panic, and then-- nothing. Every measurement and calculation and hypothesis melts into the pit of his stomach in an instant.

It is Shion, still in deep slumber, his fingers tight around Nezumi’s arm in an unconscious reaction to the threat of losing his chosen heat source. His hair is a shock of white against the wine-red pillowcases, a haphazard halo. His mouth hangs slightly open, twisting his breaths into sighs.

Nezumi stops, and breathes.

They are not without their matched scars, their habits born of a time before they were _them,_ so Nezumi cannot feel guilty. He awakens in the morning and plots his escape. He enters a room and notes every exit as if he has no intention of remaining. The thoughts and actions come like well-practiced lines, before Nezumi has any hope of stopping them.

He does not feel guilty because he catches certain cadences in Shion’s speech, evidences of misaligned intentions, sees him rub his wrist when he thinks no one is looking. Habits, all.

Shion is _Shion_ , and Nezumi wouldn’t dream of letting that change.

Nezumi’s attention drifts up to the pillowcases again. They had been changed from the standard cream ones recently, hadn’t they? Upon Shion’s insistence. The color draws Shion’s features in striking contrast, so Nezumi cannot possibly find a complaint about the change. Still, what had been the reason? Nezumi has a habit of forgetting such things—

Ah, right. The date. Nezumi gently kicks Shion’s foot under the covers. Shion gives easily with every grace of a person newly dead. Nezumi kicks him again.

(Sleeping in is a habit, too, after all, so Nezumi does not feel guilty.)

“Shion.” Nezumi pushes him harder. His eyes are going to be the same color as the pillowcases, Nezumi thinks in an unwelcome and ludicrous burst of sentiment. _I want to see them._

Is that, too, a habit? Thinking he will not see them again…?

“Nezumi….?” Shion’s countenance crumples, presenting the unintended façade of irritation. It is only when he is partially unconscious that he can possibly play such a convincing actor. “Nezumi. _Ow! Nezumi!”_

He blinks awake, and Nezumi is terribly aware of the self-satisfied smile Shion reflects in a vague frown. “Why did you kick me?” Shion grumbles, but he quickly pulls the covers up over his mouth, probably in hopes of concealing any traitorous smiles.

Nezumi arches an eyebrow. “Because you didn’t wake up the first four times, _your majesty_.” It’s hyperbole, sure, but he thinks himself allowed some poetic license. He hooks a finger in Shion’s shield, pulling the quilt down from his mouth. “Only someone as airheaded as you could possibly sleep through your own weird excitement.”

Shion visibly brightens—did he think Nezumi wouldn’t remember? He does have a habit of making assumptions—before evidently remembering that he is supposed to be annoyed. “We both worked all day yesterday. I was sleepy. You fell asleep before me, anyway.”

“To the sweet lullaby of your mindless chatter about the holidays,” Nezumi replies. “I am not a weak man, but I have my limits.”

“Well, it’s our first holiday morning together. It’s a very important day.”

Nezumi is sure his eyes are already glazing over, and Shion pouts a little, but something seems to have weakened his resolve. Nezumi’s eyes drift up to the pillow again, and his fingers follow to settle in Shion’s hair. It is soft in the morning, freshly washed and bright like the season. If Nezumi’s plans of escape had melted before, now they go _molten_.

—Not that he would tell Shion. That’s a habit, too.

“You have to open at least one of your presents in the morning,” Shion continues, his eyes drifting closed as Nezumi strokes his hair. “Before I leave, okay?” He’s rather simple, too, but not in the way that Nezumi can easily trick him. It’s oddly charming. (Is that a habit? Being so oddly charmed?)

It bothered Shion far more than it did Nezumi, having to go in to work on a holiday. Nezumi is relatively accustomed to giving up unreasonably large tracts of his time with Shion to various meetings, office visits and site surveys, the acronyms of which he can never remember, so Shion’s announcement that he would leave early in the morning on a holiday did not strike him as particularly noteworthy. Still, that evening Shion had been a concentrated cloud of amalgamated apology and latched himself to Nezumi’s side until Nezumi very firmly expressed his lack of opinion on the matter.

Nezumi does not care much for the mundane irritations that seem to so consume Shion. He does rather hate No. 6 for placing them there, however.

“Nezumi,” Shion says, and Nezumi startles slightly, “You don’t have to celebrate if you don’t want to. But when I was younger, my family always gave gifts to people we care about for the holidays, so I want to do that for you.”

Ah, he misunderstood Nezumi’s silence. “Shion, I—”

But Shion has performed that trick, that habit of his, that wonderful trick where he makes time stop and suddenly he is the only thing Nezumi can see. Like the world goes into soft-focus, a print on a canvas, and Shion stands as the figure in front of it. His expression is all determined hard lines, but his eyes are soft and warm as if in sight of a wonder of the world. “You,” he says, placing a palm on Nezumi’s cheek, “are my gift this year. Because you’re here.”

Without waiting for a response, Shion is at once out of bed and pulling off his pajamas. Dazed, Nezumi props himself up on an elbow to watch. How can he possibly be this way? This—however he is.

The windows are closed, but the curtains are pulled back to reveal curls of dusty snow painted by the wind. It would be but a small matter to open it and slip through the wide frame, just three steps and two to be out—but no, Nezumi snaps his attention back to Shion, to the soft outlines of his shoulderblades that prop as he stretches, the shadows that dance across his skin, the pale course of venom running across his back. A phantom sensation tickles in Nezumi’s fingertips, a familiar warmth. He dearly wants to trace the line. He curls both hands into fists.

Shion catches him looking, and tosses a smile over his shoulder before disappearing beneath the sweater he pulls over his head. It is one of his most earnest ones, the ones that make Nezumi feel guilty.

When he is changed, Shion wraps his fingers around his right wrist, twists them once, and then leaves the room.

Nezumi swallows.

It is Shion’s habit to make assumptions, just as it is Nezumi’s habit to hide things. These matters cannot be helped, like the sleeping habits and checking the exits and never feeling guilty about it. Shion assumes that Nezumi does not care about the holidays because of No. 6, that Nezumi has no interest in gifts, and that Shion is particularly clever with hiding places.

Nezumi hides a few things: he feels guilty receiving gifts but does not hate them. He indeed does not care about the habits of No. 6 but does care deeply for the habits of Shion, and for all his purported inventiveness, Nezumi already found the meticulously-wrapped gift hidden under the nightstand the previous night, opened it straightaway because he could not contain his excitement, and he _does_ notice when Shion checks his wrist for the phantom weight of his ID bracelet, every morning like clockwork. It makes his stomach churn.

Nezumi hid his gift in his jacket pocket, where Shion would not go poking around. He bore the taunts Inukashi leveled at him over buying _jewelry for a lover, have you really sunk so low, Nezumi?_ and thought instead of Shion finding a happy burden on his wrist each morning.

Shion assumes that Nezumi does not notice.

Nezumi does not tell him otherwise.

Not _yet_.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm fuchsiamelody on tumblr, and my trash sideblog is kazenorequiem! Drop on by and say hello anytime!


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